


the words i don't want to hear

by sorrelleaf (orphan_account)



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Angst, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:05:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sorrelleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which ryeowook and jongwoon fall in love, but jongwoon makes it far more complicated than it should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the words i don't want to hear

**Author's Note:**

> this is one of my personal fave fics i've ever written  
> reposted from a deleted acct~

it’s a little like destiny, a little like fate. 

 

and perhaps that makes him hold on to it more tightly than he should.

 

~~

 

ryeowook meets jongwoon on his first day of work. it's jongwoon's first day too and as with such things, they gravitate towards each other instinctively. it is perfectly normal, perfectly conventional, perfectly ordinary. jongwoon is older than ryeowook, and it is his second job, while it is only ryeowook's first. they become friends, jongwoon acting like an older brother of sorts. 

 

jongwoon is quiet, shy and polite; he's unassuming and generally pleasant and occasionally stomach-achingly funny. but maybe that's just to ryeowook. they connect in a way that surprises ryeowook, easily slipping into a familiarity that should, by all rights, only come after years of friendship. ryeowook thinks that maybe it’s a form of providence.

 

he likes being friends with jongwoon, slowly gathering information about him, slowly learning his quirks, gently tearing away the many many layers. just like unpeeling an onion. some things he sees breaks his heart.

 

they are both soft and shy and are often overlooked, often left in the background. and while ryeowook is content with just that, jongwoon is not. jongwoon craves attention, but shies away from it at the same time, so what happens is often a strange flux of two jongwoons, one too desperate for attention, and the other flinching away from it. it is a push and pull, grabbing attention he then doesn't know what to do with. it is awkward and uncomfortable sometimes.

 

'you don't have to do that,' ryeowook says once.

 

'do what?'

 

ryeowook's head jerks up and he looks at him, really looks. he sees a man-boy who is craving so hard for love and acceptance but who is too broken within, unable to fathom that people would see him as he is and love him despite and because of it. jongwoon's mask is imperfect, cracking in corners, overly tight in some places, and too loose in others. to ryeowook, jongwoon's mask doesn't hide anything, it just emphasizes his insecurity. 

 

ryeowook is observant, astute and instinctive, masked by a flippant attitude and nonchalance. and like knows like. 

 

'you don't have to pretend with me,' he whispers softly.

 

jongwoon says nothing at all, just ducks his head.

 

~~

 

ryeowook becomes a life belt for jongwoon, someone he can let barriers down with, someone he doesn't have to lie to. it is a burden sometimes, to help carry the baggage and pain, and more than once, ryeowook wonders why he lets himself do it. he wants to hold jongwoon together, tie threads through the jagged edges.

 

he doesn't know why. 

 

or maybe he does.

 

maybe it's that heartbreakingly beautiful smile that lights on jongwoon's lips when he sees ryeowook, maybe it's the breath that curls over his skin when jongwoon falls asleep on his shoulder, maybe it's that brilliant laugh he sometimes manages to wrangle out of jongwoon's throat, maybe it's the sweet companionable silence that holds in it implicit dense meanings he doesn't want to ponder at this instance. maybe it's all that and more, or maybe it's just jongwoon.

 

maybe.

 

ryeowook pushes any wandering errant thoughts to the back of his mind.

 

~~

 

the first time jongwoon kisses ryeowook, it is at a house party and jongwoon is drunk. everyone is drunk actually, and he is dared into doing it. 

 

everyone is drunk, except ryeowook. so only ryeowook sees the swirling hesitance and want in jongwoon's eyes and the glazed desire, only ryeowook feels the hardness rutting against him and nails digging in the bare skin on his waist. 

 

and only ryeowook knows that that night jongwoon follows him home and fucks him, hard and desperate, clinging and needy. until they are both breathless and gasping, marked and disheveled and sore.

 

'you were not that drunk,' ryeowook accuses.

 

'drunk enough.'

 

they end up fucking regularly for the next two weeks, at either of their apartments after work. it only takes a crook of jongwoon's eyebrow or a slide up of the corner of his mouth to churn a strange desperate desire in ryeowook, a heat he has never felt before. 

 

it feels insatiable, it feels incredible and it feels eternal.

 

ryeowook doesn't know what he should expect of this development. he knows he should hardly expect a relationship from it. because jongwoon's family is staunchly traditional and religious.

 

and ryeowook is a man.

 

it still doesn't stop him from hoping.

 

~~

 

he supposes it shouldn't surprise him that jongwoon stops talking to him out of the blue one day, or that he deliberately seeks out female company. sometimes, jongwoon is nothing but predictable. 

 

ryeowook thinks jongwoon is running scared, is suddenly aware of what it means to gain so much pleasure from giving another man a blowjob. he wants to convince himself that he's still normal, a heterosexual young man looking to start a family. or at least what he's always believed is normal. ryeowook almost pities him, to be so bound up in other people's opinions is one thing. but to find out that what you are doesn't quite go in line with the expected can be destructive.

 

so ryeowook lets him be, lets him search for his truths. ryeowook lets him go. because ryeowook thinks he would like to love jongwoon, or at least try, but jongwoon cannot let him.

 

~~

 

when jongwoon starts a relationship with one of the girls in the sales department, ryeowook doesn't join in the catcalls from his colleagues. he gazes at them, at his arm slung casually about her waist, at his face contorted in half embarrassment half pride, at the girl herself. she is pretty enough he supposes, bright and bubbly, like sunshine and rainbows poured into a human form, the radiance to counteract his darkness. for jongwoon is all dark energy, black hair and flint eyes and raspy voice.  _ sexy _ ryeowook has heard him described. and maybe that's what has drawn this luminous girl to him.

 

_ he will extinguish your light.  _ ryeowook whispers, and he doesn't know if it's a prayer or a prediction.

 

~~

 

two months after the relationship begins, jongwoon appears at ryeowook's door, frantic eyes and grabbing hands. ryeowook hesitates, doesn't know what to do, with his visitor, with himself. he shouldn't let jongwoon in, he knows that look in his eyes, and the tone of his voice. it brings back memories of breathless groans in his ear and fingers sliding into him, of desperate cries and mingled moans and a tongue over his cock. 

 

'what are you doing here,' he hisses, trying to push down the tide of desire. 

 

jongwoon motions at him to close the door.

 

ryeowook wants to tell him there's no need for that, wants to say that anything can be said with the door open, wants to demand that jongwoon to be more open about what he is.

 

he closes the door anyway.

 

'what do you want, jongwoon? you haven't talked to me for months, you haven't even acknowledged my existence. what could you possibly-'

 

'i slept with her last night.' there is an odd pleading quality to jongwoon's voice in the interruption.

 

ryeowook suppresses the scream of jealousy that originates somewhere in the pits of his stomach.

 

'so?' he questions, proud of the stability of his voice. 'what's that have to do with me?' 

 

jongwoon looks miserable. 'i wanted you,' he admits, voice hoarse, 'she was right there under me, and the only one i wanted was you.' 

 

ryeowook is stunned into silence. 

 

'it's ridiculous, isn't it?' jongwoon carries on, looking more wretched as the words escape him. 'you and me, we're friends right? men and men are friends, that's all. i don't, how could i want...?' 

 

'but i do, and those two weeks, god. i-' 

 

ryeowook steps closer and curls his arms around jongwoon, lets jongwoon's head land heavy on his shoulder. 'it's okay,' he whispers, 'it's okay.' jongwoon's shoulders shake but he doesn't cry. 

 

ryeowook strokes hands up and down jongwoon's back, until the tremors fade away. he hums softly, a lullaby, and he can feel tension leave jongwoon's body. it feels nice. safe.

 

then jongwoon turns his head and his mouth brushes ryeowook's skin and it's like he branded it, a mark of fire. they both freeze, ryeowook's hand suddenly feels too low on jongwoon's back.

 

when jongwoon starts pressing his mouth deliberately into ryeowook's skin, ryeowook cannot stop the moan. 'don't do this jongwoon,' he manages to say.

 

jongwoon ignores him.

 

'i love your neck,' he whispers, touching his tongue down the side of it. 'i especially like your collarbones, so pretty. just like a girl.' he curls his mouth around the bone and sucks, soft.

 

'you're so pretty, you know, ryeowook? so pretty. just like a girl. but you're not a girl, are you?' his hand slides down, over ryeowook's chest, flutters lightly over his stomach and cups his groin. 'not a girl, not at all.'

 

'jongwoon. jongwoon, stop. you have a girlfriend. don't-' ryeowook wants to hook arms around his neck, wants to tug jongwoon into the bedroom and not emerge for a week, a month, a year, his entire life. but he has to stop him. 'please, jongwoon, you can't-'

 

'fuck me, ryeowook,' jongwoon's voice is heavy with something.

 

'what...?'

 

'you fuck me for once.'

 

'i don't, you've never-' 

 

'everything needs a first try right?'

 

'but.'

 

'fuck me, ryeowook.' there it is, the dark chocolate, velvet, husky voice he'd do anything to hear.

 

_ oh fuck it. _ ryeowook thinks. he throws his arms around jongwoon's neck, and draws him closer and they stumble to the bedroom.

 

~~

 

ryeowook is an addict. he's addicted to the taste of jongwoon's mouth and the sound of his orgasm. he's addicted to the arch of jongwoon's body into his, the press of jongwoon's fingertips into his skin. he's addicted to the texture of jongwoon's tongue in the hollows and dips of his body, and the shift of muscles on jongwoon's back under his hand. he's addicted to the reflection of light in the sweat that slides down jongwoon's neck. he's addicted to jongwoon's neck, strong and sinewy and perfect. he's addicted to jongwoon's small fingers dancing down his chest and teeth scraping at his earlobe. he's addicted to low needy gasping groans in his ear, and the rasping breathless hoarse cries of his name from jongwoon's mouth. 

 

but most of all, he's addicted to the light in jongwoon's eyes when he climaxes, the light that sparks and glows when he calls ryeowook's name. the light that makes him hope that maybe they might have a future.

 

~~

 

‘i can’t be this person, wook,’ jongwoon says softly. they are spent and exhausted, tangled in a mess of limbs on ryeowook’s purple bedspread. 

 

‘what person?’ ryeowook asks slowly, knowledge creeping up on him, a cold splash of water.

 

‘this!’ jongwoon indicates their surroundings, the crumpled bed, their naked bodies, the musk of sex in the air. 

 

‘jongwoon, what are you saying?’ ryeowook crawls closer to him, raises a hand to touch his face. 

 

there is a stab of hurt that goes through his heart when jongwoon flinches away, when jongwoon moves off the bed and gathers his clothes. ryeowook watches as jongwoon winces at the unfamiliar pain in his back, as he remembers how it happened, as he crumples into a heap at ryeowook’s bedroom door. 

 

‘i can’t be gay, wook. i can’t be this person.’ there is a trembling quality to jongwoon’s voice that ryeowook never wanted to hear. 

 

‘well you are,’ ryeowook says, for once, unsympathetic. ‘you are, and what’s more you enjoyed it.’ he remembers the tightness of jongwoon around him and the thrilled shout his movements evoked. 

 

‘ryeowook. i’m not, i can’t be-’ jongwoon’s eyes are wide and fearful. 

 

‘you are, jongwoon. you are! stop denying it.’ ryeowook’s frustration turns into a near shout at the end of the sentence. when jongwoon flinches, ryeowook's lets his voice soften, almost tender. ‘why do you keep denying it? why are you so afraid?’ 

 

'i can't be gay, i can't. i'm not, i-' he's hyperventilating, keening sounds that hail a panic attack.

 

'if you're not gay, what is this?' ryeowook's voice stumbles over the words, but he tries to sound rational.

 

'a mistake,' jongwoon whispers.

 

'i'm a mistake then?'

 

jongwoon stares at him uncomprehendingly. 'no you're- no, i- i have to go.'

 

ryeowook sits on the edge of his bed, bare and fully exposed, and watches as jongwoon covers himself and his shame. jongwoon turns at the door and mutters, 'i'm sorry.'

 

'just go,' ryeowook says softly.

 

it's only when the front door clicks shut that he lets himself cry.

 

~~

 

'you and jongwoon fell out?' a colleague asks him a couple of months later. their coldness towards each other in the office is not unnoticed.

 

'hmm, yeah i guess we drifted, besides he's got a girlfriend now.' ryeowook waggles his eyebrows in a suggestive manner and they both laugh. 

 

ryeowook is lying.

 

jongwoon visits ryeowook every few days or so, as if drawn there by some unnatural magnetic pull. he reaches for ryeowook and ryeowook reaches back and they fall into bed each and every time.

 

some mornings he wakes up to an empty bed and asks himself what he's doing. he supposes it's his fault for never saying no, not even after that horrible heartrending confrontation.  _ never set a precedent you don't want to follow through  _ his mother used to say. and maybe that's what has happened, a precedent that he unconsciously set because of his own soul-stealing desire for jongwoon. 

 

ryeowook is in love with jongwoon. and so he takes what he can get, any way he can. it makes him feel cheap sometimes, worthless. he's a mistress. it's almost laughable. except it's not. he's not the bad guy, he tells himself. not really. jongwoon is the one who is cheating. he's not. he's just as much of a victim. ryeowook doesn't believe his own excuses mostly. he just wants jongwoon, laid out, spent on his bed, skin against skin, sweat slicked panting beautiful. ryeowook is selfish.

 

it is a pattern. jongwoon would stumble in and they'd fuck, mindless passionate sex. the next morning, ryeowook would often wake to a miserable regretful jongwoon pulling on his clothes and running away. he is jongwoon's secret vice, an addiction he cannot kick.

 

ryeowook hates it. hates how desperate he has become that he would agree to this farce of a relationship. it's just sex he tells himself. except it's not. not to ryeowook, and truth is, not to jongwoon either. not really.

 

'i miss you,' he admits one day, eyes focused on the ceiling. 'i miss you when you're not around. i sometimes wish i could walk around with you hand in hand, you know? go on dates. i think i might want a relationship with you. that's so weird don't you think?' 

 

ryeowook doesn't say anything. because what he wants to say is  _ you could, we could. i'd give the world to do that. oh jongwoon, our only barrier is you! _

 

on the other side of the coin, jongwoon's relationship with the girl is going well, coasting along with barely any issues. everyone thinks they'll get married. the girl thinks so too. ryeowook doesn't like to think about it, about the girl he goes on actual dates with, the girl he holds hands with, the girl he might kiss in public. thinking makes it hard to breathe sometimes. 

 

sometimes ryeowook wonders what would happen if he spilled his secret, his and jongwoon's. of clandestine kisses and uninhibited sex. he wonders if jongwoon is as rough and kinky with her as he is with him. he wonders whether people will believe him, if he would ruin jongwoon, if he would ruin himself. if jongwoon would ever forgive him.

 

~~

 

they do get engaged. 

 

when ryeowook hears the news, he slips away to the toilet and vomits. there's a hollowness where his heart used to be, a pain that crashes down like a tidal wave. he is drowning. he wants to curl into a ball and weep, cry, gnash his teeth and scream at the world, at the pure unfairness of loving a man too afraid to love him back. he wants to fall apart.

 

but he has to go out there and congratulate jongwoon, and her. pretend to be unaffected, pretend to be happy for them, pretend there isn't a rock lodged in his throat the size of his heart, pretend his heart isn't shredded into a million tiny shards. pretend. he and jongwoon are both very good at pretending sometimes. 

 

~~ 

 

jongwoon visits that night, hammers on ryeowook's door. 

 

'go away,' ryeowook screams at him. 'you proposed to her. go away!'

 

'ryeowook, listen. i have to marry her, i- it's the right thing to do.' jongwoon's hands on his shoulders do nothing to placate him.

 

'fuck you and your right thing to do. you have me, why do you need her? you have me!' 

 

'i can't marry you! you're a man, ryeowook.' 

 

'yes i am. so? what am i then, to you? someone you can fuck and throw away? i love you jongwoon. i love you. you stupid fucking fool.' 

 

it's not the best way to confess, it's not even the best way to confront him. not when ryeowook's tongue is thick and heavy in his mouth, not when tears are misting in his eyes. not when jongwoon is staring at him, dumbstruck, something that is between sorrow and shock swimming in his eyes. 

 

‘i-’ he starts. 

 

‘don’t you dare say sorry,’ ryeowook hisses. 

 

‘i wasn’t going to say that,’ jongwoon murmurs. ‘i was going to say thank you. thank you for loving me.’ 

 

he places gentle hands on ryeowook’s face, and holds him close as ryeowook slowly begins to cry. 

 

‘i still hate you,’ ryeowook says between gasps for breath. and then he kisses him. 

 

they end up in bed again, rocking slowly into the night. and when jongwoon leaves in the morning he brushes lips across ryeowook’s forehead, soft, tender, almost loving.

 

~~

 

there’s a part of ryeowook that hopes that his reckless confession would lead to some sort of overhaul of the complicated criss-crossing rules set in stone in jongwoon’s head. when it doesn’t happen, he’s disappointed, but not surprised. 

 

but it would seem he is cast to always play the disappointed party in the theatre act that is jongwoon’s life. because every other area seems to be going great. they are happily planning the damned wedding, happily going ahead into forging a life together. she wanders around in a cloud of perpetual almost contagious joy and the spiteful part of ryeowook wants to tell her everything, all the groans and moans and cries that have spilled from jongwoon’s lips, all the passion and pain, all the pleasure. it would burst her bubble, pour dust on the glittery happy ending, make everything into a farce. 

 

but it would ruin jongwoon, make him too destroyed for anything, ryeowook included. so, ryeowook keeps his mouth shut. 

 

except when jongwoon comes over, then he would cry and rain abuse on him, scream at him in half-lust half-despair. what has his life come to, that he can only be honest with this man he loves when they fuck, quick slow rough gentle. he loves jongwoon but he hates him too. 

 

~~

 

the only time jongwoon tells ryeowook he loves him, he is drunk. 

 

there’s a little pub jongwoon likes to go to, with her. they’d sit together, like picture-perfect coverpage models, dark and light heads bending over the menu. they laugh together and she touches his face and he touches her shoulder. ryeowook thinks if he didn’t exist, they would be very happy together. if jongwoon wasn’t actually gay, if he didn’t let ryeowook fuck him into oblivion every two weeks or so, if jongwoon didn’t like the taste of come in his mouth.

 

ryeowook likes to go to the pub too, and it’s an accident that he sees them at all. he watches them with bile rising from his stomach, wishes he could be in her place, secure and happy and free. he wishes the jongwoon he sees in the bedroom could be the jongwoon who walks with him along lonely pathways, who goes on adventures with him, who laughs and talks, kisses and touches. 

 

instead he's left sitting at the side, a mere observer to jongwoon's 'real relationship'. what they have is transient, insubstantial, a flitting shadow that never solidifies. 

 

the smart thing to do would be to drop jongwoon, hastily, wash his hands off the situation and then find someone who isn't so crippled with shame, self-directing and otherwise.

 

but ryeowook has never considered himself smart.

 

it's a special kind of torture, when the tormentor and the tormented are the same person. and ryeowook doesn't know why he lets himself do what he does, watch them in the pub, while hidden under shadows and dim orange light. he wonders if anyone can tell that the man talking so intently with his girl fucks another man regularly. he wonders if it's as obvious as a brand on his skin, a lighted arrow pointing. or maybe, no one knows at all, the truth hidden under jongwoon's skin and muscle like the blood that rushes so quickly through his veins and arteries. 

 

he watches the bartender watch them, the soft look that takes over her face, the same kind of affectionate, fond look people always give to things, to people, that they find adorable. ryeowook has to admit they are adorable, cute, compatible, perfect really. he wonders how quickly the bartender’s face would contort into disgust if it was ryeowook instead, ryeowook tracing idle shapes on jongwoon's forearm, ryeowook pressing his nose into jongwoon's shoulder, ryeowook kissing the skin above jongwoon’s eye. he thinks he probably shouldn't wonder so much.

 

the week before the wedding, they are there again, talking together softly, affection swirling around them. times like these it is hard for ryeowook to keep up his illusion of being the only important person in jongwoon's life, especially since words of love have never crossed jongwoon's lips. 

 

she is excited, bubbling over with plans and dreams and ideals for their future, a possibility so close so real so solid she can almost grab at it. ryeowook wonders what it feels like to be her, so settled, so secure, so sure. jongwoon isn’t so excited, he’s nervous, it’s in the tick of his pulse at the side of his neck, in the shift of his body in the seat, in the drumming of his fingertips on the table.

 

they leave in about an hour, whispering as they walk out. and ryeowook sits there for a long while after, staring at the spot where jongwoon just was. there’s a spiraling sense of realization and stupidity in his head, a crack that feels like heartbreak in his chest. all the tenderness and gentleness that jongwoon displays when he’s alone with ryeowook -- the quiet touches to his cheek, his chin, the playful pokes and pinches, the wisps of kisses on his forehead, even that one time he quietly nursed ryeowook through a fever -- they mean nothing in the light of what he has seen over the weeks and months of sitting there and watching jongwoon with the woman he is planning to spend the rest of his life with. 

 

it’s a painful knowledge to live with, that you are nothing more than a stopover in the journey of another person’s life, especially when what you really wanted was to be the destination. he has spent the entirety of their affair -- because that is what it is, small and ugly and dirty and irrelevant -- believing that he was the one for jongwoon, the end game, the finale. but all jongwoon has given him is little slivers of his heart, hidden him from the judgemental eyes of society as he perceives it. it’s been years, and he’s still going ahead with the wedding. ryeowook thinks maybe it’s time to step out. he pours what is remaining of his drink into his mouth and makes the decision to quit jongwoon, cold turkey, no looking back. ‘there’s got to be something more out there,’ he tells himself, trying to drum up hope. 

 

if ryeowook had stepped out three minutes later or five minutes earlier, maybe he would have done just that, quit jongwoon. maybe they would have never talked again. maybe he’d have rejected the invitation to the wedding, refused to don a suit, spend the time reacquainting himself with his favourite musicians instead, learn the new piece that has been gathering dust above his keyboard, try the many recipes he’s bookmarked, visit his cousin the next town over. maybe he’d have quit his job, avoided jongwoon’s calls, find another more flexible job, with greater opportunities, find a different guy, one willing to show the world how much he loves ryeowook, societal pressures be damned. maybe life would have played out differently. maybe. but maybe is maybe for a reason.

 

instead, the time ryeowook chooses to walk out synchronizes with the time jongwoon stumbles past, drunk and unsteady. ryeowook could have ignored him, could have continued his merry way, cutting off ties entirely. but ryeowook is still in love, and he is not strong enough to ignore what persistently chooses to appear in front of him. 

 

‘jongwoon!’ he exclaims, hurrying up to him. ‘what did you do to yourself?’

 

'ryeowook!' jongwoon says happily. 'ryeowook!' and he reaches for ryeowook's hands, brings them up to his face and presses lips to them. 

 

'jongwoon? what are you- you're drunk. you need to go home.' 

 

'getting married next week. married!' he breaks into a peal of laughter that sounds much too hysterical even for a drunk person. 

 

'yes, you are. aren't you happy? it's a good thing right?' the words taste like acid on his tongue, but getting jongwoon calm is the first priority. 

 

jongwoon's face takes on a secretive look. 'ryeowook,' he whispers, low and careful, glancing around. 'i love you! isn't that funny? i love you. but i'm a guy and you're a guy and i'm getting married next week! but i love you, just thought you should know.' jongwoon beams at him, as if he has just delivered an earthshaking announcement. and maybe he has, because ryeowook can feel the ground trembling beneath him. 

 

'i need another drink,' he says, non sequitur.

 

'drink! i need one too!' and jongwoon strides purposefully into the pub he just left a few hours before. 

 

'oh god,' ryeowook mutters, and quickly follows, grabbing an elbow to steady him.

 

jongwoon's high seems to dissipate in the dark confines of the pub and he abruptly starts crying. he talks about what ifs and if onlys, about running away with ryeowook, about leaving her, about happy endings. he makes gallant grand oaths to leave her, to be with ryeowook.

 

'there's love and then there's love you know? and i love her but i love you and i want-' he trails off into muffled slurred words. and ryeowook wants to uncurl jongwoon's fingers from his wrist, wants to walk away and leave him to languish in his own stupidity, but he can't. he sits there and listens to jongwoon outline elaborate plans that will never come to fruition, dreams that ryeowook himself had considered, once a long time ago.

 

he feels vindicated almost, in the knowledge that what they have, what they had was never one sided. he smiles, suddenly certain of where he wants to go. 

 

'jongwoon,' he says, softly, touching a lock of hair that has fallen into his face. 'i'm taking you home, and that's the last time i'll see you, aside from work and your wedding. we can't keep doing this.' jongwoon is silent, eyes boring into ryeowook's face. there is peace in ryeowook's soul, more peace than he's felt for a long time.

 

'do you understand me, jongwoon?' 

 

there is a strange childish innocence in the way jongwoon nods his head and mouths yes.

 

~~

 

ryeowook sits at the back of the church for jongwoon's wedding. 

 

he watches the ceremony without much apparent emotion, goes through the motions with everyone else. he hides the tortured churning in his chest, pretends he doesn't want to retract every word he said to jongwoon that night, battles with himself.  _ having jongwoon that way is better than nothing at all, right? right?  _

 

'wrong,' he says aloud, getting annoyed glances from the people around. 'wrong,' he tells himself again, sternly and softly. 'wrong.'

 

the haunted longing look that jongwoon gives him as he walks down the aisle with his new bride on his arm makes ryeowook want to run, far far away. it hurts, in the deep gutwrenching way. it speaks of unspoken promises and dreams once so close but pushed too far out of reach, of fear that cripples and harms, and of regret, soul-crushing, hope-stealing regret.

 

~~

 

two years pass by, quick and almost painless. jongwoon becomes a peripheral on his life, an acquaintance, someone he smiles at, says hello, says good morning, says goodbye. it's incredible and unbelievable, but he manages, manages to pull through the sharp blow that still catches him unawares when she leans up to kiss jongwoon. 

 

ryeowook moves on, kind of. he hones his skills, and gets promoted, is perceived as more capable, is given more responsibility. he tries a few new hobbies, goes for social events, meets people. he even dates, a couple of guys, even a girl once. it's nice to just sit down for a restaurant dinner, without fear of discovery always knocking on your door. he hasn't found anyone very special yet, hasn't found the person who can fill the void jongwoon left. because if he's being completely honest with himself, part of his heart still beats for jongwoon. jongwoon had been best friend and lover, someone he knew completely, someone he trusted completely, long before lust and desire and sex complicated the picture. he wants that again, but without the infidelity, without the drama, without the pain. sometimes he thinks jongwoon has ruined him for anyone else. 

 

it's when he is in the midst of rearranging his scores one saturday afternoon that a knock on his door comes. he's about to open it when there's a creak of someone leaning against the door and a familiar voice trickles through the gap. he freezes in place.

 

'ryeowook? it's me. jongwoon. you don't have to open the door. i know you said we shouldn't see each other anymore. but i just wanted to tell you, i left her today. it's weird, and it's taken me two years, but i've decided, finally you might say, that i can't keep lying to her, and myself. i told her i'm gay, and that well, i'm in love with you. still in love with you. isn't that silly? anyway, she was really sort of understanding. my family, not so much. but they'll come around. maybe. hopefully.'

 

there's a pause and ryeowook can't hear anything above the frantic beating of his heart. 

 

'you know i used to walk here sometimes, just stare at your apartment block. why did i waste so much time? why was i so afraid? you don't have to answer that. i just think, that maybe i'm finally ready to live, you know? as me. and i wanted to tell you. because i miss you. i just- wanted you to know.'

 

there's another creak and ryeowook knows that means jongwoon is standing up to go. there's an urgent impulse screaming at him, a anticipatory quiver of his limbs. he is scared again. 

 

he throws open the door.

 

'jongwoon!' 

 

when jongwoon turns around, ryeowook runs.

  
jongwoon catches him.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1zyn3x/waiters_of_reddit_what_fucked_up_shit_have_you/cfy6edi) reddit thread


End file.
